


After an 'X-Files' Episode

by DPPatricks



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: M/M, Some angst, a little humor, heavy memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 19:50:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14838089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DPPatricks/pseuds/DPPatricks
Summary: Starsky and Hutch watch Mulder and Scully, then get into an intense discussion.





	After an 'X-Files' Episode

**Author's Note:**

> This story was accepted for the 2017 Starsky and Hutch Advent Calendar ( http://starskyhutcharchive.net/advent/2017/ ) on Day #16. My sincere thanks to Flamingo and all her *elves,* for creating the calendar each year, and to every reader who left a comment.
> 
> A/N - Some X-Files background: at the end of Season 7, FBI Agent Fox Mulder disappeared. His partner, Agent Dana Scully, pregnant with his child, knew he’d been abducted by aliens but nothing more. The viewing audience though, during S8, had glimpses of the torture/torment Mulder suffered. His body was eventually dumped in a field and Scully, plus Assistant Director Walter Skinner, were the principal mourners at his burial.  
> On April 1, 2001, “Deadalive” aired. Formerly deceased abductees began coming back to life and Skinner ordered Mulder’s body exhumed. It was, and he was hospitalized.

Dave Starsky dropped his feet off the coffee table. “There was no autopsy?”

Ken Hutchinson had been so immersed in the episode, he hadn’t thought of that. “Guess not.”

Starsky got up, ran to the kitchen and grabbed two beers from the fridge. Coming back, he gave one to Hutch and plopped back on the couch. “The funeral home didn’t pump him full of formaldehyde? He’s just gonna _wake up_?”

“Shh,” Hutch shushed. “We’ll talk about the mistakes later.”

During the scene when Mulder finally regained consciousness, Starsky watched intently, his beer apparently forgotten. Sitting in a chair next to the bed, Scully was holding Mulder’s hand. She was clearly trying to keep the horrors and fears she’d experienced during the months of his being missing and then ‘dead’ in check, but Mulder’s expression was gently clueless. 

SCULLY (almost breathless): “Do you have any idea what you’ve been through?”  
MULDER (beat; soft): “Only what I see in your eyes.”

When the show was over, the television turned off and second beers were being consumed, Hutch realized his partner was more pensive than usual. “Why so quiet, babe?”

Starsky studied the brown bottle in his hands. “Thinkin’.”

Normally, Hutch would have made a sarcastic remark but something in the tone of Starsky’s voice kept any unkind words behind his teeth. Instead, he put his arm around the shoulders and drew the familiar form close to him. “About what?”

“That was a beautiful piece of writing, ya know?” Starsky looked up, an emotion in the indigo depths that Hutch didn’t recognize. “When Mulder told Scully he knew what _he’d_ been through because he could see what _she’d_ been through.”

“You’re right. It was nicely understated.”

“I never thought about what it was like for you, Hutch.”

Beginning to sense that the conversation was going somewhere he wanted to avoid, Hutch ruffled Starsky’s hair. “What’re you talking about? I’ve never been abducted by aliens.” He lifted his arm, preparatory to getting up but Starsky held onto him. 

“All these years… and I never asked. It musta been hell.” Starsky snuggled closer. “Dobey and Huggy told me you sat in the waiting room during the hours and hours of my surgeries. Then, before you went after Jenny Brown, you straddled a chair in the hall until they let you into my room. When they got me back, after I coded, you hardly ever left my side except to figure out what happened.”

Hutch had sincerely hoped he’d never have to talk about those days again. He had buried the terror, fear, remorse and guilt under what he believed were impenetrable layers of self-control. As Starsky leaned against him, Hutch couldn’t say a word because the memories were overwhelming.

“I _died_ , Hutch. Before I realized I was in love with you.”

Hutch tried to swallow around the constriction in his throat. “That was the worst part. Knowing you were going to leave me without my having had the courage to open that door. Ask if you felt the same way.”

“I did, but I didn’t know it. And I was such a selfish bastard, all I ended up doing was feeling sorry for myself. Shot up, missing most of a lung and part of a kidney, scarred like a y-incision cadaver, never to be a cop again.”

“Made a liar out of yourself that time, didn’t you?”

Starsky huffed. “Only because you hounded me and wouldn’t let me quit.” 

“You didn’t want to quit, Starsk. Not really. Not until after we’d gotten Gunther.”

“You had to do that whole thing by _yourself_! I didn’t do shit!” 

“I could claim you were my moral support but you were much more than that, partner. You were my center, my compass, my True North. Whenever I felt myself slipping off the deep end, I’d think about you lying in that bed, struggling for each breath, but alive! And I could go on. You were with me every step of the way, Starsk. _We_ brought Gunther down.”

“That’s a nice thought, even though it sure didn’t take any effort on my part.”

“You were doing more than enough by beating off the infections and complications.”

“So you threw me a party! You, Dobey, Huggy, you all went to so much trouble. I laughed so hard when the sprinkler system went off the docs thought I might have torn my stitches inside.”

“You hadn’t though.”

“Nope. But I crashed after they got through checkin’ me out. I think I was crying when you came back. How’d you manage that, anyway? Thought I heard the security guy say they’d never let you in the hospital again.”

“Nothin’ to it, Starsk. I bribed a few nurses, couple of interns --”

Starsky punched him lightly. “You smiled at Head Nurse Shirley. Your best innocent look and those baby blues. I’ll bet that was all it took.”

“Busted.”

“I was cryin’ though, right? When you got back?”

“Nothing to be ashamed of, Starsk. You were hurting so badly.”

“You crawled onto the bed and held me. Put those long, strong arms around me so gently I could relax a little and let you draw the pain away.”

“It’s exactly what you did for me. Remember? You held my hands that day in Intensive Care when I couldn’t breathe. You pulled the agony right out of my lungs and into yourself. I had to try and do the same.”

“And you succeeded. I wouldn’t have believed I could fall asleep but I did. And when I woke up, there was your mouth. So sorrowful, so hopeful, so beautiful…. I kissed you.”

“And I kissed you back.”

“You’d known for a long time, hadn’t you?”

“A while.”

“What would you have done if I hadn’t made the first move?”

“Gone on waiting.”

“Forever?”

“If necessary.”

“Why, Hutch? You could always have anybody you wanted. What did you ever see in me?”

“My mate, my other half. My love. The person I admired more than anyone else in the world. The man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”

Starsky pushed himself out of Hutch’s arms and sat up, his eyes on the warm beer in his hands. “Watching that scene between Mulder and Scully tonight, I realized you never told me about the mental part; your thoughts and feelings when you knew I was dying. When my heart stopped.”

Starsky put his bottle on the table and turned to face Hutch. “It’s been twenty-two years, but suddenly, I feel as if I need to know. I need you to tell me everything you hid behind those gorgeous eyes and inside that gigantic heart.”

“I’m not sure I can. It was so long ago… I think I’ve forgotten.”

Starsky gave him his very best cop-stare. “Bullshit.”

“Okay, maybe I don’t want to remember. Let it go. Please? It’s over and we’re together, the way we were meant to be.”

“I used you, Hutch. I took advantage of your love during those months after I came back. I was a self-centered prick, making demands on your time, your caring attention, getting angry at your stubborn drill-sergeant attitude. I never even thought about what _you_ were thinking and feeling and _needing_. For a while there, I was sorry I was in love with you. Thought I wanted you gone from my life.”

“I knew that.”

“‘Course you did. There wasn’t a single thing about me you didn’t know. I guess what I’m trying to say here, Hutch, is that I didn’t have any idea what you were going through.”

“All I remember, Starsk, is being grateful that you were alive. And that you were in love with me.”

“I’m gonna say it again, Hutchinson, that’s bullshit!” Starsky put his hands on either side of Hutch’s face. “There had to be so much more. Can’t you tell me now? Scully-to-Mulder truth? I know what I went through. I don’t remember it but I know because the docs, Dobey, and Huggy told me. What I need to understand is what it was like for you.”

“I’m not big on confessions, pal.”

Starsky shook his head. “Not askin’ for a confession. I just want you to share with me. You’re the greatest guy I’ve ever known for hiding his pain and not letting anyone into the fortress you built around yourself.”

“I never meant to exclude you, Starsk. Please believe that.”

“I do, babe, I really do. Your family were the first ones that caused you to start building, weren’t they? And then Van?”

Hutch tried one last time to derail the approaching freight train of emotions. “Remind me never to let you watch X-Files again.”

“Forget X-Files. Let’s pretend it’s Christmas, 1979, and you’re sitting on Santa’s knee. I’ll be The Great Claus, okay?” Starsky hopped off the couch and sat on the coffee table facing Hutch. “I’m a dirty-old-man-Santa and I like having thirty-six-year-old guys on my lap.” Hutch couldn’t help laughing. Starsky wiped the lascivious sneer off his face, puffed out his chest, and assumed a deep, cajoling voice. “Tell Santa your deepest heart’s desire, sonny boy. What do you want more than anything else in the world this Christmas?”

Hutch closed his eyes and whispered the prayer he’d silently offered innumerable times during those terrible days. “To have Dave Starsky alive. I’ll never ask for anything ever again. Just please let Starsky live.”

“You did it, Hutch, I lived. And I realized I was in love with you, and here we are. It’s 2001 and we’re still together, we’re still each other’s best friend, and we still love each other.”

Hutch leaned forward and kissed him. “Thank you, Santa.”

Starsky dropped his hands to Hutch’s shoulders. “But you haven’t told me Scully’s truth yet. I really do want to know, and I think it’ll help you if you finally let it out…. Tell me.”

“Starsky, please --”

Starsky scooted back a little on the coffee table, a look of deep compassion on his face. “Continuing the Christmas scenario for a minute here, you’re the greatest gift I’ve ever gotten, Hutch, but you sometimes hide your feelings so well almost nobody knows they’re there. And back then, more than at any time before or since, I let you get away with it. You took care of me, babied me, hassled me, pushed and shoved me right where I wanted to go. But I was blind to what _you_ needed.” He lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. “I don’t want to be blind any longer.”

Hutch struggled to find the words for quite a while and it surprised him that Starsky waited patiently. With the kind of trust, support, and uncharacteristic calmness his partner was demonstrating, how could he refuse? He took a deep breath. “I died when you did…. I just didn’t stop breathing. And when you came back, you brought me back with you.”

“That’s a good start, Blintz.” Starsky took both of Hutch’s hands. “Go on.”

Starsky’s incredibly blue eyes practically dragged the next words out of Hutch’s mouth. “I died when you did,” he repeated. “But during the race to the hospital I told myself I could keep going until I’d tracked down each and every person responsible for your death. I’d make them pay, Starsk… and then I’d follow you.”

“Figured it was something like that.” Starsky raised Hutch’s hands to his lips and kissed the knuckles. “I know there’s more though. Keep goin’.”

The sigh that surged through Hutch’s entire being tore open the firmly closed and tightly locked doors of his psyche. He lurched off the sofa onto his knees and flung his arms around Starsky’s hips. He laid his face on Starsky’s thighs and squeezed his eyes shut. 

“Shhhh. It’s okay.” Starsky’s fingers laced into Hutch’s hair. “It’s only me here. And soapy scenes are not only allowed tonight, they’re required…. Tell me.”

“I’d never known such emptiness. I was utterly without hope, useless, worthless. I’d let you take those bullets --”

“You yelled at me to get down. I remember that.”

“But you didn’t. You stood there and made them go for you, rather than me. I didn’t protect you. And then you were lying there, bleeding your precious life out onto the pavement. And I stood at the front of the car like a statue.”

“For what, a nanosecond? Dobey told me he found you holding me, your eyes boring into mine, you telling me not to leave you. Not to give up.”

“I guess maybe I did. I don’t remember.”

“You wouldn’t let me go, Hutch. You held me with your eyes and your will until the medics showed up. One of my surgeons said he couldn’t believe I made it to the hospital alive. It was you, Hutch, you were my miracle. I don’t call that useless or worthless.”

“You’re romanticizing things.”

“No, I’m not. I’m telling you Scully’s Truth. You kept me alive.” Starsky kissed Hutch’s temple. “And you brought me back.”

Hutch looked up at his partner. “I don’t understand.”

Starsky’s thumbs wiped the tears from Hutch’s cheeks. “When my heart stopped, I think I remember floating up and away. It’s all kinda fuzzy and I may be adding layers of stuff I’ve read about other peoples’ experiences but I could see you racing up to the front of the hospital. You came in so fast that when you skidded to a stop, the left front quarter of Dobey’s car ended up on the sidewalk. Hellava controlled fishtail, Hutchinson.” Starsky’s smile was full of pride. “Scared a bunch of interns who were standing there. You left the keys in the ignition and the door open, bolted through the entrance, and flew right past the elevators to the stairwell. I never did ask you about the bloody bandage on your left wrist.”

“How do you know all that?”

“I saw you. I was floating above you. And the look on your face - oh, God, the look on your face. You were silently pleading with me not to leave and I heard you. By the time you made it upstairs I was back in my body. I have to give that doctor credit for not passing out when my ticker monitor came off flatline.”

“You never told me.”

“Hutch… I couldn’t wake up for a long time after that. Wanted to, couldn’t. Doc told me later it was something about my body needing to regroup. When I did though, I was so proud of your having figured out it was Gunther, I didn’t want to think about anything else. So I sorta filed the experience away under ‘weird stuff’ and promised myself I’d never be the cause of such fear on your face again.”

Hutch sat back on his heels. “We’re a pair, aren’t we? Lots of things you didn’t tell me, lots more things I didn’t tell you. It’s a wonder we’ve managed to --”

“Don’t start questioning, Hutch. ‘It’s a wonder’ as in ‘wonderful’! I wouldn’t trade a minute…” He grimaced. “Well, maybe I’d give up a few of those months of therapy --”

“You said not to question, Starsk, so I’ll give you the same advice.” He climbed back onto the sofa and took his best friends hands in his, rubbing the knuckles gently. “I didn’t want you to know what I was thinking and feeling. I simply wanted to be there for you, to do whatever I could and whatever you needed.” He looked into Starsky’s concerned, supportive eyes and gained all the strength he required. “I think now though, I can tell you.” He took a calming, centering breath and let it out slowly. “Every time you had a setback I was plunged straight to the lowest level of hell again.” 

Starsky put a hand to his cheek but didn’t say anything.

“Then you’d rally and be almost back to your before-the-shooting-self and I’d be in heaven. It was the most devastating, gut-wrenching, heart-rending, terrifying, exhilarating roller coaster ride of highs and lows I’ve ever known. I wouldn’t want to go through it again but I’m glad I didn’t miss a second of it.”

Starsky kissed him very tenderly. “I know it wasn’t easy to tell me all that. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Hutch returned the kiss. “And you were right. I did need to let it out.” 

“Hmmm,” Starsky hmmmmmm’d. “The X-Files as a shrink’s couch. Who knew?”

Hutch laughed out loud before turning quite serious. “I would very much like to make love with you, Starsk. Would you come to bed now? 

Starsky raised an eyebrow. “To quote Huggy, ‘You gotta ask?’” 

*******

Long-buried terrors  
Brought to light and talked about  
Due to a few words

 

END


End file.
